Political squabble lead to death of Roselle tree commission

ROSELLE -- Roselle’s council abolished the borough’s Shade Tree Commission Wednesday amidst finger-pointing by council members who accused each other of playing favorites in cutting down trees.

Shade tree commissions in municipalities around the state maintain trees, sometimes planting them and other times taking down sick or damaged trees.

The political conflict in Roselle centered on two council members involved with the commission: Christine Dansereau, the commission’s liaison to the council who pushed to abolish the body, and Sylvia Turnage, who served on the commission.

“I think the main reason for Christine proposing this is that I know she has a problem with (Councilwoman) Sylvia (Turnage) being on the commission,” said Robin Randolph-Henderson the president of the Shade Tree Commission.

Dansereau said actions by Turnage, and “political favors” by the commissioners were one reason she pushed to abolish the organization.

“No single council person is supposed to call a vendor and say, “Come do work to the tune of $1,200,” Dansereau said. “We were having that kind of thing done.”

Turnage said that in one instance a tree on Morris Street was on the border of public and private property and was taken down during a heavy storm in 2009 when a homeowner called the Department of Public Works, afraid the tree could fall on his house.

The move by the council turned over the commission’s responsibilities to a newly-created division in the Department of Engineering and authorized two new part-time jobs, for a typist and a laborer.

Those positions will be paid between $10 and $20 per hour.

Shade Tree Commission president Robin Randolph-Henderson also said this month that the cost of two part-time employees in the Engineering Department would likely cost more than the commission’s administrative cost of a $2,500 stipend each year for its secretary.

Mayor Garrett Smith said the move was against the advice of the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Smith provided a letter from Todd Wyckoff, a state forester that warned that abolishing the commission would be a “huge mistake,” and called shade tree commissions “a necessity and not a luxury.”